SUSE Requests openSUSE to Rebrand

banazir@lemmy.ml to Linux@lemmy.ml – 291 points – SUSE Requests openSUSE to Rebrand
linuxiac.com

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/37281970

Believe it or not, an unexpected conflict has arisen in the openSUSE community with its long-time supporter and namesake, the SUSE company.

At the heart of this tension lies a quiet request that has stirred not-so-quiet ripples across the open source landscape: SUSE has formally asked openSUSE to discontinue using its brand name.

Richard Brown, a key figure within the openSUSE project, shared insights into the discussions that have unfolded behind closed doors.

Despite SUSE’s request’s calm and respectful tone, the implications of not meeting it could be far-reaching, threatening the symbiotic relationship that has benefited both entities over the years.

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Oh wow. SUSE family of distribution is relatively small footprint. Whole story sounds like "splitting the hair". The only reasonable explanation is that SUSE hired some self-glorified marketer from big corp. omg...

No, there are good reasons for it. A lot of people get confused between SUSE and openSUSE offerings. Often SUSE customers show up in openSUSE places, because they believe that it's a place they can get official support. And I'm sure a lot of potential customers might get confused in the same way too.
On the flip side there are also a lot of openSUSE (adjacent) users who think SUSE is (secretly or not) making openSUSE development decisions or think they can dand SUSE to do that and that.

So there are some good reasons to consider a rebranding, but also some speaking against it, like the less of recognition it might entail.

And you really think, people who are willing and able to buy enterprise support for their Linux distro get confused by the naming? Sure, there's that one confused dude, but you also have people asking Facebook where they left their keys.

OpenSuse is essentially free marketing for SUSE, nobody would know them otherwise. Why would you give that away?

Suse is not a huge company, it has neither a large enterprise backer nor any killer features, and its market share is relatively small compared to Red Hat or Canonical. Throwing away free marketing while alienating a relatively passionate community is a kind of brainrot only MBA can come up with.

And you really think, people who are willing and able to buy enterprise support for their Linux distro get confused by the naming?

No, I don't think that. I *know* that because I'm active in the community.

OpenSuse is essentially free marketing for SUSE, nobody would know them otherwise.

That is absolute nonsense. SUSE mostly serves large enterprise customers. That's an entirely different demographic from people who care about Desktop Linux or setting up a home server.

Edit:

its market share is relatively small compared to Red Hat or Canonical.

I'm pretty sure SUSE is bigger than Canonical.

Editedit: According to wikipedia SUSE's revenue is about twice as high as Canonical's

That is absolute nonsense. SUSE mostly serves large enterprise customers.

And where do you think the people deciding what to buy get their information? Mind share is important.

I'm pretty sure SUSE is bigger than Canonical.

That's actually surprising to me, but I'd argue that Suse offers more products, it seems like Rancher, Longhorn, etc. have no canonical equivalent.

And where do you think the people deciding what to buy get their information?

Advertisements at large airports

And where do you think the people deciding what to buy get their information? Mind share is important.

Most certainly not in Linux distro community spaces, because those are completely irrelevant for them and their needs.

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I’m surprised and happy that SUSE is still doing well. I have fond memories of using SUSE in the enterprise especially around their “perfect guest” campaign for using it in virtualized environments. I thought they had very well-baked integration with large Windows networks—things just worked out of the box that didn’t with RHEL. I’m sure a lot has changed in the last decade but I appreciated their cooperative stance in the enterprise.

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OpenSuse is essentially free marketing for SUSE, nobody would know them otherwise

I've been working for big enterprises for many years, SUSE is used in enterprise environment to run SAP systems because it's recommended by SAP, OpenSuse has nothing to do with that.

And relying on marketing by someone you don't control is not good decision even if losing some mind share.

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I am in the linux world 20+ years. Used SUSE for short amout of time back than and never really cared much about it, just glad it still exist.

This is the first time I am hearing openSUSE is not part od SUSE.

Having different name should be good for all. I think openSUSE people should have done it long time ago. But sounds like name is not the only problem.

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Just rename it jeSUSE, because nobody fucks with the jeSUSE.

Doesn't SUSE actively benefit from openSUSE development? I thought Tumbleweed and SLES had a similar relationship as Fedora and RHEL.

Notice that "Fedora" does not have "Redhat" its name. Maybe the request is reasonable. I don't know how many people think that thy don't need SLES, because there is openSUSE.

My comment was more about how SUSE benefits from openSUSE development (and vice-versa) and that Tumbleweed has a similar relationship to SLES as Fedora has to RHEL, as they are both upstream of their respective enterprise distributions.

Besides, people don't need SLES. Enterprises do because of the support they get. And I'd assume employees responsible for that kind of thing at such enterprises would know the difference.

And the Red Hat logo is literally a fedora hat.

If it's just a name change done well, I couldn't care less (although openSUSE is a very recognizable name and brand recognition would have to be reestablished). I just hope that this isn't the beginning of something worse.

Fedora/Redhat is a good example. It could be argued that the Linux distro scene was different 23 years ago, making it harder to be seen today.

The thing I'm pondering is what the openSUSE community actually is. Does it exist as a group, or is it separate projects, each doing their own thing... for who? What is the overlap between people in the various distros, overlap in technology used in packaging and QA etc? Is it meaningful to talk about openSUSE as a distinct community separate from SUSE?

SUSE provide a lot of the infrastructure for openSUSE and base their enterprise Linux from factory.

New name suggestion:

"The Distro Formerly Known As openSUSE"

openDISTROFORMALLYASKEDBYSUSETOREBRAND

I do hope that's an acronym, too. 🙃

wow. I had a good opinion of suse up to this point. what a silly request after all these years.

Corporate backing is a two-edged sword, unfortunately.

From my own looking into this it looks like more of a suggestion than a request (for now at least), just a "this might be a good idea, we should look into it".

I just don't get what they are thinking. opensuse is basically free advertising for them.

Yea, I only know suse from opensuse and of my company ever needs Linux support, I would go to suse because I know it from openSuse..

And I would love to work for suse because I had such a good experience with openSuse

I think a name change would be pretty dump..

this is how I feel. If I am involved in work decisions I will recommend the enterprise version because the support just makes sense and is incredibly cheap vs most software. It actually took me awhile to understand the whole fedora, centos, redhat connection.

It's a strange suggestion after very recently working closely with openSUSE to ensure Leap can use the same binaries as SLE, though

Strange is using and marketing someone else's name without written permission.

Why do you think linux distros and free software have such strange names? To avoid stepping on someone toes without expensive trademark research.

TIL SUSE exists and wouldn't have found out if not for OpenSUSE and this news. It's kinda weird to open their website and see this:

SUSE is such a stupid name. Like, it is stupid to say in German.

Just rename it SUSGeckoOS

If GeckOS isn't already taken, it could be kinda cool.

Why Geck ?

A gecko is a lizard, so it's in keeping with SUSE's chameleon theme. Maybe a little too similar for corporate.

I think Komodo Linux, or KomodOS are good options too, but I can't recall if they were already used for a distro.

I don't know what's stupid to say about Gesellschaft für Software und Systementwicklung mit beschränkter Haftung

That must be annoying just after OpenSUSE went through a branding redesign process. I guess they'll have to give up the gecko logo since SUSE also uses it?

And there's more at stake than a rebranding it seems. This could signal SUSE withdrawing development support from OpenSUSE:

Let’s face it: SUSE has been more than just a namesake for openSUSE; it has actively provided resources and support far beyond what it would ordinarily need for its business operations.

This generosity has fostered a thriving openSUSE project that has excelled under SUSE’s goodwill and informal support, including contributions made by SUSE employees on company time.

However, the recent request for a branding separation has overshadowed this partnership. If openSUSE does not handle this request with the sensitivity and cooperation it demands, the project risks not just a reduction in support from SUSE but a potential shift in priorities away from it.

The “Factory first” policy, a cornerstone of the engineering synergy between SUSE and openSUSE, could also be scrutinized, emphasizing the gravity of the current situation.

This could signal SUSE withdrawing development support from OpenSUSE

i had a similar thought; feels like the centos/redhat episode we had a couple years ago.

This is a massive miss-play on Suse's part. Essentially all the good will, and recognition I have for Suse is based on OpenSuse. It's the reason many of the places I've worked at now run a Suse product instead of redhat. Seriously, when I think of OpenSuse and Suse as a whole I barely differentiate the toonunlike redhat and fedora. That's likely the reason for the switch but I cannot see how-this does anything but benefit them.

From the article too there are some concerns. Suse is, admittedly, trying to cause opensuse to change direction ans managment to further suit it's buisness at threat of removing support. This is sad to see.

The request was respectful and SUSEs support on OpenSUSE is very helping the project so I’d personally be fine with fulfilling that request

Honestly, for a good distro, the brand is not great. Perhaps this can be viewed good opportunity to go with something more unique!

This is absurd

This is absurd

Years ago, when there were talks about establishing an independent foundation, sane people already warned that relying on a trademark not owned by them is risky. That was batted away as a non-issue. Now here we are.

AbsurdOS -- the free enterprise operating system

OpenSUSE is not an enterprise operating system. This is probably why they want the rebrand.

Since I had to deal with some representatives of SUSE corp, I can say that the whole experience was just plain horrible. Don‘t like that company at all and thus am not surprised that the name change topic is even discussed at all.

Just change the name. It’s not a big deal. SUSE is a stupid name anyway.

I think it's one of those things that will become a bigger deal indirectly because of all the knock-on effects. Like the branding, they'll have to have the logos all redesigned, the domain name will have to change, it'll mess up a lot of troubleshooting when people google the old name etc.

I agree but it could be worse (Pop!_OS)

Seems a pointless endeavour. The open and enterprise sides are so deeply linked, it makes sense that they share a brand.

Separating them only weakens the broader SUSE ecosystem.

@thehatfox @banazir
Suse and Oracle already have an enterprise-level community project, OpenELA. This image explains very well in my opinion why SUSE is asking the openSUSE community to remove the SUSE name.

I'm curious as to where they're actually going with this. They got news, they got repo, but still nothing to run even after almost a year?

ESUS OS?

Just go the last step and call it Jesus OS

Off the top of my head...

  • Gecko or GeckOS
  • LizOS
  • ReptilOS
  • ChamelOS
  • KomodOS

Ooooh, I love GeckOS, rolls off the tongue silky smooth. Maybe this is just a great opportunity to rebrand (again)

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The openSUSE website obly lists three variants, Leap, Tumbleweed and MicroOS. I don't see the many confusing variabts that are mentioned in the article

Thanks!

Well I think that the atomic distros, especially desktops, have a big future, I hope openSUSE gets to keep working on those.

I might try Kalpa actually. Seems like the openSUSE version of Fedora Kinoite?

Thanks!

It has been my pleasure.

Well I think that the atomic distros, especially desktops, have a big future

So do I. Though, I think they'll have a big future across the board.

I hope openSUSE gets to keep working on those.

Yup, me too. I trust that at least openSUSE Aeon will thrive (through Richard Brown). And hopefully that will eventually result into a healthy ecosystem in which more 'immutable'/atomic spins (with other desktop environments) will follow.

I might try Kalpa actually. Seems like the openSUSE version of Fedora Kinoite?

Technically, it's indeed openSUSE's take on an 'immutable'/atomic distro with KDE Plasma. However, there's a big difference in how much development it enjoins.

  • For Fedora Atomic, all the spins are equal~ish in regards to their development. Like, it's not possible to point to a difference that goes beyond polish.
  • On the other hand, openSUSE Aeon is in RC3 while openSUSE Kalpa hasn't left Alpha. This is not surprising when considering that multiple people work on openSUSE Aeon and only a single developer works on openSUSE Kalpa.

There's also a difference in how 'immutability'/atomicity works on Fedora Atomic vs openSUSE MicroOS. Without even going over the implications thereof. But that's out of scope for what's intended for this comment.

awesome you seem knowledgable :P Can I bother you to share any resources on the differences between the atomicity between fedora and open suse? Search engines suck these days

Can I bother you to share any resources on the differences between the atomicity between fedora and open suse?

It's genuinely hard to point towards an exhaustive source on the matter. Perhaps related to the fact that there are continuous advancements and developments going on that make it hard for something to not feel outdated very quickly. But, basically, Fedora Atomic heavily relies on OSTree/libostree for accomplishing its 'immutability'/atomicity. While, on the other hand, openSUSE MicroOS utilizes Btrfs snapshots (primarily) instead. Some implications are:

  • Fedora Atomic is able to track changes. openSUSE MicroOS currently does not. Though, this feature is planned.
  • Fedora Atomic is (pretty) reproducible; even if after dozens of transactions one returns back to an earlier state without tracing back. This is possible through the use of layers instead of directly changing the base system. This is something Btrfs snapshots can't do currently. Therefore, there's nothing that indicates that openSUSE MicroOS is able to do the same. Though it can be reproducible in its own way.
  • Git-like features of OSTree/libostree allows branching (and other git-like features) when managing deployments. Concept of branching is alien for Btrfs Snapshots.
  • Fedora Atomic basically offers built-in factory reset. For openSUSE MictroOS, this is planned.
  • Like git, Fedora Atomic can rebase. In practice, this allows it to change drastically through a single reboot without actually reinstalling. This is used to rebase to a new major version (from Fedora 39 to Fedora 40), but even more impressive is to change from Silverblue (GNOME) to Kinoite (KDE Plasma) to Sway to Budgie etc. And all of this, without (most of) the cruft associated with these changes. Heck, you could even rebase to uBlue images or any others you fancy. This concept of rebasing is not found on openSUSE MicroOS.
  • In theory, Btrfs snapshots should be more flexible in regards to applying changes we may find on traditional distros. But, unfortunately, because Fedora Atomic is further along its development, we don't actually notice this. (The upcoming update related to bootable containers for Fedora Atomic doesn't make it any easier for openSUSE MicrOS to be more flexible anyways.)
  • The upcoming update related to bootable containers also allows Fedora Atomic to be (relatively) declarative and hence; less state. This concept is also currently absent on openSUSE MicroOS.

Ongoing developments may alter the above list significantly. It's even entirely possible that all features mentioned above will be found on both distros in the upcoming years. However, vision and scope are perhaps decisive when it comes to making any predictions regarding the future. We haven't gone over those yet... Going over those is out of scope for what this comment intends :P .

Search engines suck these days

Can't agree more.

Call it gecs os and have 100 gecs do the promotion for it.

Name it UnownOS. The other variants like MicroOS and Leap all have logos that look like Unowns.

I'm sure Nintendo wouldn't mind. Their lawyers are known to be pretty chill...

If the just called it other.

It would gain a huge boost in desktop usage figures.

openSUSE is already a brand, now the main thing is not to get lost.

When I hear openSUSE, I think of german engineering and resources from SUSE, with a history of innovating great infrastructure.
With a new name, distanced from the SUSE part, I'll probably feel more like if this is yet another random derivative created by a small group who might soon lose interest.

Makes sense really.

OpenSUSE is not the open version of SUSE ( SUSE Linux Enterprise - SLE ). If you compare to Red Hat, OpenSUSE is Fedora, not CentOS.

I can see how people would get the wrong idea.

It is a bit crappy that they waited so long though. On the desktop, OpenSUSE is quite an established brand.

If GeckOS doesn't work out... SUSEbanthony, LazySUSE, SUSEsarandon, DrSUSE, uSUSEalsuspects, OkcanSUSE (must be sung)... #puns

If they were to rename/rebrand, what would be the new name, do you think?

I've heard mention of GeekLinux/GeekOS.

That is terrible idea, it's even worse than my fun proposal of openSAUCE...

I can imagine that getting confused with Guix (pronounced geeks)

Dont do things that aren't necessary.
The name is adequate, it performs it's function, its there.

Feels like consumerism, always "innovating" for the sake if being new and flashy.

Oh, wait, SUSE said that? Weird.
I guess if it's a (kind of) must, tho that makes me weary of what's SUSEs plan that they would benefit from this. It can't be just stupid manager stuff, right? :D

That said, I submit open-me-SUSSY for consideration.
I believe most will assume correctly what the general idea for the logo would be, so no need to sketch it.

A bad time to install Tumbleweed? I just downloaded the ISO today, not kidding.

It's as a good time as any. I would just install and use it. Name change or not, it shouldn't affect your usage. Don't worry

I don't personally care for anything suse based. I find that rhel like is more stable and easier to work with

Chameleon Linux: Changing Stripes Edition